


Sink The Feeling

by churb



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bullying, Drabble, Gen, I think????, So here we are, Trans Character, Transphobia, WIP, i hate tagging that but there's no option for "Trans Stuff", this is definitely a wip either way, what's a drabble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3766159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churb/pseuds/churb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've never liked photographs of yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once upon a time this was going to be a weird nsfw drabbly thing with socially unacceptable kinks
> 
> guess what ended up not happening
> 
> (i just liked the exposition so much i moved it to my sfw account and went from there omg) 
> 
> (this might either stay as a oneshot or i shall add new chapters idrk)

You've never liked photographs of yourself.  
  
You suppose that's a combination of factors. You've never been very confident with how you look. You don't consider yourself particularly photogenic. You're too awkward by now with the prospect of photography to do anything except either try to get out of the picture somehow or just pull your hood or your overshirt over your face, so even if you were comfortable with the idea of people taking them, there aren't many focused on your actual face, let alone where you look semi decent. Your profile picture on Facebook is a picture of your shoes with a beach background; it's probably a bit too Thirteen Year Old Amateur Photographer With A Tumblr Blog for your kind if personality (that's hardly your aesthetic) but it's better than your face.  
  
And you don't want to think about older photos. Photos from before you were about sixteen can go burn, in your opinion. It never looks like a photo of you, you never feel like that's the same person you are. Going to your parents' house for any sort of celebration involves staring at endless photos of a young girl in a frock and feeling like that isn't you at all. It's almost like you have a sibling who doesn't exist any more. You cannot match yourself with the girl in the picture. Not any more.  
  
Sometimes, when you were a kid, when you could still pass for female (and you were less inclined to argue) your mother would bring clients to the house for her hairdressing business, before it got big enough for her to get a studio. They'd look at the photos and make some joke. "So where's your daughter?" "Haven't you got any photos of your son?" It would be something inane like that. Whether your mother explained the situation or just lied about your gender identity often depended on what sort of mood she was in, or if she thought they would understand. Frankly, you couldn't care less if they did. They could just learn to understand.  
  
So photographs were not a very good subject for you. You suppose you might have been a little over the top during that incident with Ronaldo when you were twelve (it was around the first time you'd felt sure about yourself) (maybe you were just too proud of your new name) but you don't doubt it could have made him famous and you just got nervous, that was all. He couldn't have understood. You don't expect him to understand at all; he was too young, probably not educated. But when you're twelve and you've just started to transition, you really don't want any photographs of yourself floating around in ten years that would basically draw a huge ass red line in the sky all like THIS FUCKER IS A GIRL. The reason you started your transition when you did rather than as soon as you could was because you were moving and starting new and it was just a good time; you couldn't transition in the city you grew up in because you knew people, you had friends, and you really didn't want to have to sift through fifty thousand inane ways to say Hey Amelia Why Did You Cut Your Hair. So you assume you can be forgiven if you were a little ansty about having your photo taken.  
  
You're not sure whether the fact that that broke your friendship reflects badly on you or him.  
  
Of course, your friends from your old city grew up too, and by the time you were fourteen or fifteen and they got their own facebooks and twitters and _somehow_ tracked you down (despite a different name and a picture that isn't your face) you still had to suffer through endless questioning on your outward identity and several more "Haha Well Lars Is A Cute Nickname But You Sound Like A Boy Lol"s and "Can't I Just Call You Amy It's Sweeter"s than you really have the time and patience for. When you eventually snapped and told them you were a fucking boy and they could call you by your _fucking name_ or stop bugging you, that was when the numbers started to drop and the messages declined and the guy who used to sit behind you in math class stopped asking for nudes. (Fuck off, Drake. You see no reason why he should be coming on to you now when he refused to kiss you during a fifth grade Spin The Bottle session shortly before your departure.)  
  
You don't care. You're weeding them out, as far as you're concerned. You don't care when you check one morning and not a single one of your old classmates still has you added because that means they don't want to talk to you and  
  
and they think you're a total freak and possibly some kind of psychopath or sex offender but you decide to push that to the side for now because (as you keep telling yourself) it's a good thing. If they don't want to talk, they don't want to talk. It's just a bad reflection on them, okay.  
  
You don't care what people think of you.  
  
Honestly.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

You don't have many friends.  
  
This is unsurprising to you because you live in a city where the population is probably about 25 people and most of them really aren't your sort of demographic. There are a very small amount of people who are even the right age, let alone people you would be interested in a friendship with. You suppose you can't exactly be blamed if your only friends at the moment are either your co worker (which is rapidly falling apart due to sexual tension and the fact you're really not a nice person) and an eight year old boy (who you are starting to deeply resent but are now trying to be less unpleasant to because you suppose it's not his fault he's annoying).  
  
(Well, that and the woman you assume is his new mother is about seven foot tall and came in with him one day and when you were your usual snarky self she advised you in the most terrifying and British tone you have ever heard that maybe you should try being nicer to Steven. So, hey, how about being  _really nice to Steven, holy shit._ )  
  
Sometimes you speak to people on the internet. You have a blog. You don't really maintain close contact with anyone who follows you but you have the occasional conversation and sometimes people tag you in things they think you'd like.  
  
Mostly, though, you keep to yourself. Especially now.  
  
Sometimes you think about it. You don't tend to dwell on these things often, because you're usually preoccupied with...other things that are not these things. But sometimes it's 3am and you can't sleep and you think about it then because there's nothing you can distract yourself with.  
  
You're pretty sure that your current unfortunate relationship with Sadie was more your own actions than hers. The two of you don't talk much now save for obligatory conversation, which doesn't really surprise you all that much. As previously stated, you're not a nice person. The whole island shibang might have been her fault but even so you're still wondering if the intent justified the ends or if you'd hurt her in some way by calling her out on it. She did say she just wanted to help you.  
  
You didn't feel very helped, though.   
  
It's not her fault, probably. You think. She obviously didn't think it through and even though that itself kind of is her fault you know that she didn't mean to hurt you. It wasn't that you objected to the alone time, or...time spent not working and also in her vague proximity, you guess? You don't hang out outside work, less so before Ronaldo tried to have you murdered and especially not after that. You would have enjoyed the experience (you think? You hope?)  if you'd actually been prepared for it and, well. You weren't confronted with the possibility of being stranded without certain things.  
  
You can find food. You can find water. You weren't as much worried about starving than the fact you were stuck here without any testosterone. And maybe that's a dumb thing to worry about. Maybe your priorities are totally out of whack. You'd already been established as "emotionally unstable", after all, which hurt a lot more than it probably should have. You just weren't looking forward to the prospect of your transition actually going backwards, and, worse, having to explain it to Steven. The only people in the entire city who know are Sadie and Ronaldo and honestly? You'd prefer to keep it that way. Especially considering Steven might have considered your transition some kind of shapeshifting gimmick or something and blab to his weird alien aunts about it.  
  
You just don't see why it's anyone else's business, that's all.  
  
The other thing about that is you're really not sure how people would react.  
  
You're insecure. It's probably obvious. Anyone within a three mile radius of you can probably physically see your self esteem issues and self loathing and dysphoria as a manifested being that just sort of floats along behind you all like Yo. As previously stated, there are not many people who are in your sort of demographic as far as friends are concerned. Maybe you're not too concerned about the opinion of, say, Steven's dad. Well, you are, but not  _as_ concerned as you are with certain others.  
  
You would probably maintain that the Cool Kids clique was the best thing that happened to you...if it had happened to you. If they had any interest in you or your presence at all. You're not sure what you're doing wrong; you are trying, You went through a lot of shit to get that fucking salad, okay. You want to be angry about it and you want to sardonically consider Buck an asshole but you're just too intimidated by how (well, cool) they are to really harbour any resentment. That and you find the guy kind of hot. Hot enough to dive straight into Salad Hell anyway. You might just draw a line there in the future. You have a feeling he was playing you and you fell right into it. Nobody orders a salad at a fucking donut shop.  
  
_Anyway_ , because you're getting off track, it just seems like your every attempt just makes you look worse.  
  
It's probably really, really bad. You're twenty. You really should not be intimidated or nervous by/around a pack of perfectly friendly  _teenagers_ for Christ's sakes.  You try to tell yourself that they'd probably like you no matter what; it seems to work for Steven, after all. (You probably shouldn't be harbouring any crushes on them either, because that's just fucking _wrong_ , but you try not to consider that.)   
  
You're just...worried.  
  
The reason you got onto this mental point was because if there's anyone who you really, really, really do not want knowing about your gender identity it would be them.  
  
They...probably wouldn't judge you? You think? It's hard to say. You'd like to this most people would be accepting enough and you really don't see any reason why they wouldn't be (by no means do you want to imply that any of them are bad people) but it is a real possibility and something you're quite uncertain about. You don't want it to be something that changes anything. You're just worried that they might start sort of instinctively seeing you as female. (You're also pretty sure that it would mean you had no chance romantically with any of them. Not that you would or even should have a chance romantically with them anyway. It's just attraction to boys and attraction to....dare you say it, female anatomy, are two things that generally with people kind of tend to cancel each other out.)  
  
The unfortunate thing that comes with your identity as trans is that a lot of social interaction is a battlefield and you're constantly worrying about how socially acceptable your very being is, or whether they would deem you as freakish or, in some cases, damned to a varied series of relatively unpleasant afterlives.   
  
Or maybe that's just you.  
  
The kids from your old town didn't ignore you for long. It took about two weeks and then the comments rolled in.  
  
It wasn't all of them, of course. Your life is not an angsty yaoi fanfiction from 2007. Some of them were fairly accepting of it and probably (you think) stopped talking to you for some other reason. (Because you're a dick. Yeah. That works.) And it doesn't bother you as much as it would if you were still living there, or talking to them. You can just ignore them. Or block them. Or come back from your break to see Sadie with your phone meticulously blocking them. Something like that. (You don't know how she figured out your password. It was your birthdate backwards. You would have thought it would be obvious enough to not think of.)  
  
You're still not sure how you feel about this, because you're not really comfortable with the idea of her going through your phone; although apparently the screen lit up when you got a notification and she just happened to see an unpleasant opening sentence. You supposed after you stopped freaking out that again, she was trying to help. (Sort of again? It was way before the island thing. You don't know.) You just wish that Sadie Trying To Help didn't tend to correlate so much with Sadie Unintentionally Violating Your Privacy Or Private Life.  
  
That was before you stopped speaking.  
  
You think about calling her, but you decide against it. She's probably asleep by now. You hope so. You don't want her to have anything to worry about enough to keep her up. She's too sweet for that. She doesn't deserve it.  
  
Maybe you'll try and talk to her tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when lars says "steven's mom" he means garnet. regarding this fic he moved to beach city after steven was born. lars never met rose and just assumes garnet is his mom because they share most resemblance (hair etc)
> 
> this does sound like a cheap cop out to make him blameless in lars and the cool kids (re not knowing steven's mom was dead) and i'm not going to lie i do understand that but the timeline doesn't make much sense otherwise :/

When tomorrow rolls around you suddenly don't feel as much of an urge.  
  
When it comes to dealing with people, such has never exactly been your forte. You're cripplingly insecure, with about eight different kinds of anxiety and the only person you even remotely confident standing up to is an eight year old boy who probably can't even tell you hate him and still, even through this, continues incessant attempts at being your friend.  
  
No. You don't hate Steven. It's quite the opposite. You find him rather endearing. But as been previously established, you are not a very nice person, you're not a good person, and among all your other feelings about people you feel some sort of incessant burning jealousy. And it's not, as previously affirmed by you in mid conversation, because he gets to hang out with "hot babes". You feel no sexual attraction to Steven's mom or the other two who you assume are Steven's aunts or sisters or something. As cute as British accents are (not that you'd dream of saying such out loud) she'd probably kill you just by sitting on you.  
  
You don't know what you were thinking of before that but now you're thinking about getting sat on by an alien lady and you probably need to distract yourself from this with something else before you start thinking about her naked.

Oh yeah, Steven. Or were you thinking about Sadie? Sadie had something to with it. No, it's Steven now. Okay. Steven.  
  
You're not jealous of Steven because he lives with attractive yet terrifyingly deadly women. You barely pay attention to his family apart from when the purple one went through a phase of trying to flirt with you and Sadie. As in, both of you. At the same time. Evidently she gets around.  
  
It's more the whole concept of the unconditional love shebang. His family love him and accept him no matter what and because as previously stated you're not a good person you cannot fucking stand it. You don't know why. You haven't exactly had a bad time with your own family. You suppose, granted, that it was your father who pulled most of the strings as far as your transition was concerned and your mother just sat back and ignored it all.  
  
She split from your father when you'd just turned twelve, shortly before you moved. He says it wasn't you, but you got the tiniest, vaguest impression that she was pissed off about not being able to dress you up in infantile patterned frocks any more. You try not to care.

Steven's family are unconditionally supportive of whatever it is he wants to do. He hits it off with everyone he meets. He barely spoke to the Cool Kids for five fucking seconds and he didn't even _try_ and his stupid, stupid family fucked it up for you and now they're all buddies apparently and drive around and hang out everywhere and it hurts because they didn't even try for you. Buck sees you as someone easy to fuck with for a cheap and easy laugh, god, he walks into the  _donut_ shop that sells _donuts_ and asks for a salad or a screwdriver or a packet of muffins or a carton of shaving cream and Lars actually runs off and gets it for him! Haha. What a weirdo. Look how thirsty this guy is. How easy to laugh at. The whole of Beach City might as well be having a fucking joke at your expense and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference because nothing would fucking change.  
  
You hate it. You hate Buck. You hate all of them. And you shouldn't hate Steven, but sometimes it's just easier to tell yourself you do.  
  
Oh yeah. That's what you were going to think about. Before all this hate rolled in with the occasional mental image of Steven's mom in lingerie okay no you told yourself to stop that.  
  
You wake up that morning and spend far longer than usual trying to get your hair into some semblance of order (you curl it artificially. You hope nobody finds out) and when you make it to work finally Sadie is ignoring you and you settle yourself behind the counter and vow to yourself to do some actual fucking work. At least then she might be a little less angry with you.  
  
You look back up and come face to face with Buck Dewey and almost fall off your chair.  
  
So you asked him what he wanted and he told you he wanted pliers and you don't know why or why you put yourself in these situations but you sweat an ocean and tell him it's no problem, Buckaroo, double pistols, and make your way out of the door and to the nearest 7/11 which is at least ten minutes away even when running and you almost get hit by three cars on the way there because you're not looking where you're going.  
  
When you come back he's gone.  
  
You stand defeated for a moment, pliers in your hand, and you're tired and out of breath and when you get home you might ask your dad about getting an asthma diagnosis because you're fairly sure your breathing is worse than it should be (or maybe you're just horrendously unfit) (that comes with being skinny apparently) and you just sort of sit on the floor and stare at your hands for a moment and you might be shaking and then the door beeper goes off and when you look up Sadie's gone.  
  
So you pull yourself up and follow her.  
  
"Sadie?"  
  
She's just walking away, you remember, and this concerns you because you don't feel like you've done anything wrong so you jog a little more and catch up with her.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
She turns to look at you and god, she looks furious, and you bite your lip.  
   
"Oh." She says. She sounds as angry as she looks. "I didn't realize you'd gotten back. I just need to...do something. Just. Wait back at the shop for me."  
  
That was a lie because you were pretty damn vocal upon entering the building but you don't argue with her in case she sets you on fire again (which was your fault but you still have nightmares about it) so you nod and watch her walk away. You don't go back to the shop, though. You follow her, lagging behind enough so she couldn't see you.

Sadie keeps walking for a while and you tail her most of the way without her noticing. Eventually, Dock 15 comes into sight, and you hide behind a nearby fence and watch as she continues on her way.  
  
Jenny's car (well, the family pizza car, you guess) is parked outside, with the roof down, and all three Cool Kids are sat inside with various sodas that you assume Buck bought in your absence, and they're, as far as you can tell, laughing about something. Your chest tightens and you bite your lip, you're trying not to cry but it feels like it's going to happen regardless, but this lasts for about five seconds fore Sadie reaches the car, reaches up, grabs Buck by the front of his shirt, and slaps him in the face.  
  
You still. You hold your breath.  
  
"What the fuck?!" Jenny seems to object to it more than the other two; Sour Cream just stops what he's doing mid doing it and Buck just sort of stares, glasses askew. Sadie drops him and clears her throat.  
  
"Maybe sometime," she says, "you should consider coming into the shop and actually buying a donut."  
  
If you weren't holding your breath before you are now.  
  
"If you need something." She continues. "Something abstract? Something that isn't a donut, get it yourself. Lars isn't here to run around for you! He knows you're fucking with him, okay? And it's upsetting him. I know he can be a jerk, but he hasn't done anything to you. He really, really likes you. And you're just exploiting it."  
  
Buck doesn't answer that. The other two are also fairly quiet. Sadie takes this as a sign to turn around and head back in the direction she come fro

Oh.  
  
"Lars?" She steps back a little. "I thought I told you to wait at the shop?"  
  
Your hand goes to the back of your head. "Haha. You did. But, um."  
  
"But you didn't." She sounds disappointed, and you stare at her for a moment with absolutely no idea what to say in response before she sighs and takes your hand, dragging you away.  
  
In the distance you can vaguely hear Jenny say "Damn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied this isn't a threeshot


End file.
